Ben Carson's Fake Stalin Quote Came From a Right-Wing Facebook Meme

Ben Carson made a lot of questionable decisions tonight (showing up at all, to name one). His biggest mistake, though, was the active choice to end the evening with a quote from Joseph Stalin—one that was, of course, a complete lie.

“Joseph Stalin said,” Ben Carson begins, using a phrase that would rarely end well for a presidential candidate even if it weretrue. “If you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.”

Unfortunately for Carson, and much like the vast majority of his information, this quote appears to have come from nothing more than a paranoid Facebook meme—according to Snopes, this Facebook meme:

The only thing surprising about Carson quoting a right-wing internet meme is that it’s taken this long for it to actually happen. But then again, at least to hear Carson tell it, no one ever lets him talk in the first place.